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CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins suffered an angry meltdown after getting schooled on the national border crisis by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) live on air.
Lawler gave Collins a free history lesson about Democrats and the border crisis on Wednesday.
“The reality is that [the border crisis] is a crisis of the Democrats’ own making.”
House Republicans, Lawler reminded Collins, have passed legislation addressing the border crisis.
However, every House Democrat voted against the bill.
But Collins defended that opposition because the bill contains “a lot of Trump-era immigration policies.”
“Those are the policies that actually brought down the border crossings,” Lawler said as he issued a fact-check on the fly.
“Joe Biden reversed those policies and border crossings exploded, which is why we’re dealing with this catastrophe.”
Yesterday ABC ran a knee-jerk story headlined, “House passes GOP antisemitism bill amid college unrest.” Showing it can move fast when it wants to, yesterday Congress rushed through a poorly-considered antisemitism law to show support for Israel amidst a terrifying national outbreak of anti-Israel messaging and mostly peaceful protesting.
The bill was led by Representative Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), and 15 Democratic co-sponsors. Many Republicans and Democrats who voted against the bill said it infringed on free speech. The new law requires the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of ‘antisemitism’ when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws.
Some complained that the IHRA defines antisemitism, in part, as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews.” That definition, relying as it does on subjective perceptions, seems too squishy to survive Constitutional scrutiny.
Other complained about the expansion of federal criminal laws, worrying that a law like this gives Biden’s DOJ more tools to arrest and over-charge actually peaceful protestors, as we’ve recently seen happen to Christians protesting abortion clinics.
Supporters of the bill expressed worry about legitimate fears experienced by ordinary Jewish folks who feel like all this mostly peaceful outrage and hatred is directed right at them.
Opposition to the bill was bipartisan. Several Democrats argued against the IHRA definition and some of the contemporary examples on antisemitism provided in the IHRA materials. Humpty-Dumpty-like Representative Jerry Nadler, who is Jewish, said he opposed the bill because it would put the "thumb on the scale" in favor of one definition of antisemitism and could "chill" constitutionally-protected free speech.
In March, Governor DeSantis controversially signed a bill with new protections for Jewish Floridians. He took a lot of heat for doing so. None of the students arrested this week on Florida campuses have, to my knowledge, been charged with any hate crimes under the new law.
“We must give the Department of Education the tools to … hold college administrators accountable for refusing to address antisemitism on their campuses,” said Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.), the bill’s lead sponsor.
Republican
_congressman